This invention is in the field of dispensing machines for bottles and/or cans.
It has been known heretofore to construct vending machines for vending either bottles or cans wherein a compartment was dimensioned to hold two side-by-side pairs of columns of articles in vertically staggered and laterally overlapping relation and with one of the columns of each pair of columns rearwardly of the other and with swinging bail means to selectively release a single can at a time. Such a device is shown and described in the patent to Ural, U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,355. In that patent, the side walls of the compartment were provided with cut-out portions opposite one of the front or rear columns so that initial swinging of the supporting bail would release an article from one of the columns during initial movement of the bail and further movement thereafter would release an article from the other front or rear column. Such devices, however, involved the modification of the compartment walls. That patent also employs two separate swinging bails, one for each of the side pairs of columns in the apparatus.